Website Design Fail

[Rageaholic]

Why are some websites so friggin hard to navigate? Like on Rate my Professor, they have this nice thing that let's you sort instructors by their field. This makes it so only those within the selected field will show up, narrowing your options. The problem, you still have to sort through them alphebetically. Even if you specify the field, that still means you're only going to get those in that field who's last name begins with the selected letter. Instead of, I don't know, just listing all those in the field in alphebitcal order like you used to be able to.

Also, why must so many websites have all this extra crap that only causes lag? I'm not just talking about ads, I mean everything, videos on the home page, flashy backrounds, graphics, ect. They don't add anything to the website aside from making it look "cool".

I know it's a minor annoyance, but it's one that's been bugging me lately.

[Andara Bledin]

I can tell you why they have a more granular listing: Bandwidth.

It's easier on both their servers and those with slower connections to have smaller groupings. Sure, it sucks for those of us who have high speed and can view the whole of the listing in one great chunk, but it's no great hardship to make a second choice to specify the initial.

As for the ads, flashy graphics and videos, I'm in complete agreement with you.

Way too many professional sites are built with the high-speed user in mind and take no consideration for anyone who might be more restricted. I really thing that in addition to having a "mobile" version of their sites, they should have both full flavored (high speed) and scaled back (low speed) versions for those of us who want the content and not the marketing.

^-.-^

[muses_nightmare]

I know what you mean. I especially hate when the navigation just disappears, that's just sloppy web design. And automatically playing music is the most annoying thing ever.

I have to admit that I find web design a bit difficult, it's why I designed my portfolio site in flash. But then I'm a graphic designer, so I focus mainly on print work.

[joe hx]

Or take Home Depot's site for instance. Say there's a category called "drywall" and a subcategory called "moisture resistant." Options for the subcategory may include "yes" "Y" "no" "NO" "n" and there will be no consistency with the options - every item that appears under "yes" may or may not appear under "Y"

[Amanita]

Count me in as another who hates automatic music on websites, with a nice heaping portion of extra hate if there's no way to turn it off!

[Rageaholic]

Yeah music on websites is another annoyance, especially if it's AT A HIGHER VOLUME THAN NORMAL!

[powerboy]

Oh man, I hate those. If the music plays automaticly, and I cannot turn it off. More than likely, I will not be coming back to the site.

[joe hx]

I tend to leave my computer muted, so I don't normally notice those things. But that is a major reason I leave my computer muted.

[Skunkle]

You want to see bad web design? And not "I created this to encompass every bad cliche of websites because it's funny", but genuine horror?

Google Yvette's Bridal Formal. They're a real store somewhere in Florida. Their site - which is NOT a joke - is almost impossible to get through, but navigating it is worth the effort if you enjoy laughing at the trainwreck. The site has loads of pages, links in odd spots, eye-searing colors and images and, if you hunt enough, food recipes, poetry and odd stories. It used to have some conspiracy theory pages, too.

[Skelly]

I hate the commenting system on a certain newspaper website over here. Clustered, unorganized, replies get duplicated, triplicated, sometimes quadlicated, takes fucking forever to load.

[HYHYBT]

Worse than music is an ad or video that plays automatically. Especially the way I browse (and don't quite understand why other people don't do the same), which is, when presented with a list of interesting links (a forum on a message board, or the results of a Google search, something like that), to go down the list first, opening each in its own tab, then closing them one by one as I read them. Works beautifully.... except when one of them has a noise. I can't tell which one it is, and muting means losing my music too.

On a related note, I also hate pages that are designed either not to load fully until they're in front, or else jump themselves to the front whenever they feel like it. I don't mean ads, either.

[muses_nightmare]

Worse than music is an ad or video that plays automatically. Especially the way I browse (and don't quite understand why other people don't do the same), which is, when presented with a list of interesting links (a forum on a message board, or the results of a Google search, something like that), to go down the list first, opening each in its own tab, then closing them one by one as I read them. Works beautifully.... except when one of them has a noise. I can't tell which one it is, and muting means losing my music too.

This is exactly how I browse, and at any given time I have at least 15 or so tabs open. Deviant art is bad for having the ads with sound, and half the time I have several of those windows on looking at different artworks and such.

[Andara Bledin]

... to go down the list first, opening each in its own tab, then closing them one by one as I read them. Works beautifully.... except when one of them has a noise. I can't tell which one it is, and muting means losing my music too.

On a related note, I also hate pages that are designed either not to load fully until they're in front, or else jump themselves to the front whenever they feel like it. I don't mean ads, either.

You, too, huh?

With the way tabbing works, now, and the way people are starting to take advantage of that, websites really should smarten up.

I really can't be bothered to deal with a page that the designers thought was a special snowflake that had to have your complete attention. Even when it's something that I wanted to do, I won't deal with that crap.

^-.-^

[Rageaholic]

On a related note, I also hate pages that are designed either not to load fully until they're in front, or else jump themselves to the front whenever they feel like it. I don't mean ads, either.

Those are the worst!!

The sad thing is, two of my favorite websites are designed like that. With this one site, I'm lucky to get it fully loaded half the time, and this is with a brand spanking new laptop. The other is impossible to log on without freezing if you don't have a more recent computer.

I think it comes down to having too much stuff for your computer to handle at once.

[Andara Bledin]

One music site I visit won't start loading unless it is the active tab. Irritating, and the page itself is prone to failures because they're more ambitious than I think they're really quite competent to handle, but I still visit because they have enough value to me that I'm willing to put up with the flaws.

^-.-^